دانلود رایگان مقاله درک رابطه اشتراک گذاری دانش نقش تعدیل کننده انگیزه درونی و استقلال کار

abstract

A cooperative organizational climate is often argued to promote knowledge-sharing behaviors among employees. However, research indicates that managerial interventions aimed at shaping the organizational climate can be difficult to execute. We develop and test a contingency model of intrinsic motivation and job autonomy as moderators of this relationship. We find that the social climate for cooperation better predicts knowledge sharing when employees show low levels of intrinsic motivation and have high levels of job autonomy. This suggests that a cooperative climate and intrinsic motivation are substitutes with respect to their impact on knowledge-sharing behaviors, while climate and job autonomy are complements. We find support for these ideas in data gathered from a sample of 170 employees of a knowledge-intensive firm.

5. Concluding discussion

Previous research has found that HRM practices are closely intertwined with intraorganizational knowledge sharing (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2005; Minbaeva, Foss, & Snell, 2009). Empirical research in the field has identified relevant factors that impact knowledge sharing, such as the reward system, the organizational climate or the availability of IT tools for knowledge sharing purposes. Although these studies have provided valuable insights on how HRM practices can be designed to promote knowledge sharing, important gaps remain in the literature (Foss & Michailova, 2009). For example, in much of the literature there is a proliferation of a macro (organization) level constructs and perspectives which can be problematic because the micro-mechanisms that mediate between HRM practices and observed knowledge sharing outcomes are not identified and observed. This makes it more difficult to make informed interventions. In this context, the first contribution of this paper is related to the moderating role of intrinsic motivation in the relationship between cooperative climate and knowledge sharing. Results indicate that cooperative climate and intrinsic motivation are substitutes with respect to predicting employees’ knowledge sharing behaviors, thus suggesting that a cooperative climate can serve as a supplementary source of motivation for those employees who do not show a natural interest towards knowledge sharing. The second contribution discuss the relevance of job design. In particular, we developed and tested the argument that granting employees increasing levels of autonomy will strengthen the positive influence of a cooperative climate on their decisions to share knowledge. Results presented here suggest that job design features play a role in strengthening the potential positive effects of a cooperative climate in organizations. This is good news for managers, given that a managerial interventions through job design is likely to be less costly than an attempt to shape the social climate of the organization or department.